{"id":23911,"date":"2019-05-31T13:14:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T17:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23911"},"modified":"2019-05-31T13:14:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T17:14:25","slug":"brocks-banter-ears-to-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-ears-to-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Ears to the Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My paternal instincts come and go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a particularly sunny Sunday this past\nweekend, I had the chance to just sit back and relax by the water and indulge\nin some people-watching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who is employed to observe and\nreport, for lack of a better phrase, the sheer variety of people that call\nsouthern Ontario home never fails to fascinate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People were out walking their dogs; dogs\nof all shapes and sizes, accompanied by owners of the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some boomers were enjoying  a Sunday outing with their elderly parents,\ntaking in some golden moments in some golden light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others, keen to enjoy the weather but not\nnecessarily interact with their fellow man or woman, were basking in what\nnature conjured up, casually but firmly plugged into their earbuds to drown out\nthe din of humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others were out with their kids, some\npushing strollers, keen to soak in one of the very first near-perfect days of\nour long-delayed spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such kid was watched by his smiling\nparents as he walked a dog several times larger than himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another couple was out with their toddler\ndaughter who was still taking her first tentative steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she walked towards the water closely\nfollowed by her parents, she had her right arm stretched out and dangling from\nher wrist was a black and white soccer-themed bracelet. It was clear that\ndespite their best efforts, even at this early stage, that the girl was\nprobably not going to be Canada\u2019s next soccer superstar as she marched towards\nthe water, right arm outstretched, purposefully \u2013 that purpose being to toss\nthat plastic bangle into the drink, apparently so she could continue living her\nbest life off the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those scenes sometimes make my own\nbiological clock tick a bit faster; then again, it grinds to a halt when the\nreverie is pierced by an eardrum-shattering screech from another nearby child.\nOr two. Or three. An entire gaggle of kids who, despite pleas from their\nparents or caregivers continue on their merry way, content with challenging any\nand all boundaries set before them.
\nWith each plea, a new line is set, new goal posts are planted, and, faced with\na new challenge, the kids are all too content to step right up to that line and\ngingerly place their big toe on the other side just to see what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost each and every instance is another\ntap on the biological clock\u2019s snooze button and we\u2019re back to square one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is these instances are coming\nall to frequently and from all too many directions these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it is not just limited to kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the factor, we appear to be\nliving in a climate where walking right up to the line, putting that big toe\nin, taking it out, putting it back in again for good measure and shaking it all\nabout is becoming a rule rather than an exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asking for permission before having any\ncause to ask for forgiveness used to be the standard, but not anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take, for instance, the ongoing furore in\nAlabama regarding their new abortion laws which will see a near-total ban on\nthe procedure, even in cases of rape and incest. It is an unconscionable move\nfor the obvious reasons. It rejects and rolls back reproductive and basic human\nrights that were hard-fought by previous generations, and sets the stage for a\nlooming larger battle that will see just how far special interest groups can\npush back against basic human rights for all in favour of the interests of a\nfew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a wider perspective, at the Federal\nlevel in Washington, the country is facing an executive quagmire at the top\nthat seems to be waggling its toe over just about every line it can find with\nincreasing regularity, damn the consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of your opinion of the\nindividual holding the office of President of the United States at this or any\nother time, just a few short years ago there were some standards one could\ncount on; standards that, although relatively informal, were the benchmark of\npresidential behaviour and dignity for the office. When those standards were\nseen to be breached, whether it was the Watergate scandal or the Lewinsky\naffair, individuals elected to be the public\u2019s checks and balances on the executive\nwere deployed for the sake of the collective standards in which members of the\npublic held that office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, nearly two-and-a-half centuries\u2019\nworth of those standards have been tossed aside rather unceremoniously as\nlawmakers continue to move the proverbial goalposts to suit their own agendas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re not immune to this here at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ottawa, for instance, we have ongoing\nquestions and controversy on whether the Prime Minister has attempted to move\nthe accepted goalposts when it comes to the independence of our judiciary and,\ncloser to home, at Queen\u2019s Park, we have a Premier who seems keen on poking\nmany of the institutions we hold dear, like public health care, to see just\nwhere those limits are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When those limits are reflected in public\nopinion polls, however, backtracking begins and these instances of backtracking\nare reframed as a gesture of good faith in the people of this Province \u2013 like\nMonday\u2019s announcement the Provincial Government was backing down on a number of\nretroactive cuts to municipal funding, including dollars allocated for\nemergency services, public health and child care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each of the proposed cuts sparked a\nfurious and immediate backlash from lower tiers of government and members of\nthe public alike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a government that listens,\u201d said\nthe Premier on Monday, noting that future cuts were still on the agenda but\nimmediate cuts were now off the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is indeed true. In many cases, this is\na government that listens, but it seems that these ears prick up only when\nthere is a potential hit at the polls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If governments adhered to the old norms of\nconsulting and listening to the public to find out where the line is before\nthey stepped over it, everyone would be in a much better position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where those lines currently lie, however, anywhere around the world, is\nanyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir My paternal instincts come and go. On a particularly sunny Sunday this past weekend, I had the chance to just sit back and relax by the water and indulge in some people-watching. As someone who is employed to observe and report, for lack of a better phrase, the sheer variety of people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6dF","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 21:25:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}